Fence Posts

The silver Cadillac purred down the asphalt. Dad was a car guy. He bought a new Cadillac every two years, whether we needed it or not. He was a 21^st century cowboy. A good day for dad was jumping into his car and driving several hundred miles. It was about freedom. It was about independence.

Morning would bring opening day for grouse hunting season. This year, having turned the ripe old age of 13, it was my turn with dad. Hopefully, we’d have our limit by noon, snap on the radio for the football game and just hang with dad’s hunting buddies.

The posted speed limit was merely a suggestion. Straight north, the two lane highway from Taylor to Bassett was 60 miles through rolling sandhills. The road barely curved. Our journey would be interrupted about half way by a general store and post office tucked off the side of the highway. The town was named Rose. It had to be named for a person, because a delicate flower was nowhere to be seen. If you blinked or looked left, you missed the whole town. There was never a reason to slow down for Rose.

In this part of the country, you could drive for several miles without even seeing another vehicle. If you did, it was customary to wave. Not an exuberant hand motion, just lifting the hand casually from the top of the steering wheel and flashing a mitt of fingers. Invariably, the wave would be returned. It was a throwback to the covered wagon days, I figured—two travelers in opposite directions having a brief encounter as their paths crossed. A courtesy of the travelling clan, long since abandoned.

The road was lined with windswept ditches of white sand and sage brush. Occasionally a tumbleweed the size of a small child would get its courage up and spring onto the road. The constant gusts of wind ensured its safe passage across the highway. Unless an unfortunate one got trapped under the front bumper of a speeding vehicle, they were harmless and nature’s way of marking time.

Just beyond the ditches were the barbed wire fences. This was cattle country. The ranches so large, you rarely saw a cow. The fence was the law of nature and the law of man. Fence posts were unique and uniform at the same time. They were built from rough hewn wood, not fabricated posts. Limbs cut right off the tree. Fence posts were valuable, trees were sparse. Five or six feet long and securely pounded into the terrain. Three lines of taut barbed wire linked the posts together. Every several miles a fence post would be marked with an upside down cowboy boot. Sometimes several boots consecutively. The boots were worn to the point they had to be replaced and the marking was significant only to the person who had left them.

The fence ran for miles without a break, until a county road forced a separation. In a flash the fence continued, occasionally interrupted by a sand and dirt entrance to one of the ranch houses. Large overhead signs identified by symbols marked the ownership. The Lazy L Ranch, RDT Ranch, XOX Ranch. The brand meant ownership. The brand meant independence.

The rules for neighbors were simple. Property lines were sealed by handshakes generations before and memorialized by barbed wire. Legal documents weren’t necessary. Justice did not require a lawyer, a judge or a courtroom. Justice was swift. Justice was self help. Neighbors knew right from wrong and would nod along with the solution as willing jurors.

Just as justice was swift, so was compassion. This country was still man versus Mother Nature. In the daily battles, Mother Nature continued to win her share. Emergency services were a luxury not to be afforded. Neighbors helped. The mention of a trip to town meant, “Can I get you anything?” Sometimes a neighbor would drive the several miles around the fence just to drop by. Invitations weren’t needed. If you noticed a neighbor’s fence was down or damaged, you didn’t call and report it. And you sure as heck didn’t just drive by. You stopped and fixed it. If it required parts and materials in your pickup, you just used them. You didn’t send an invoice, and unless specifically asked, it was never mentioned. With neighbors here you just knew that “it would all even out in the end.”

I stared out the passenger window watching the fence posts go by—thwack, thwack, thwack—mesmerized by the faint sound of the airflow. We would drive for long stretches without a single word. I could tell he was looking at me.

“What’re you doing?” he said.

“Nuthin,” I said as I continued to watch the fence posts. Anthropologist had determined that the word had multiple and varied meanings ranging from “I don’t want to talk about it” to “I was thinking about something I don’t want to share with you,” to simply “I’m not doing anything.” Mine was the latter.

“You know what you see between the fence posts, don’t you?”

“Nuthin.” This time I meant it.

“Focus on the fence posts as we go by.” We continued flying down the highway. I watched the fence posts—thwack, thwack, thwack. “What do you see?” he asked.

“I don’t know…after a while you can’t see the fence posts. You just see the flash of them going by. It’s kind of like a sideways movie.”

“Yep.” The car dipped and rose slightly like a ship rolling on choppy waters. “So, do you know what’s between the fence posts?”

I watched in silence. “I give up.”

“Life.”

“Life?”

“What you see between the fence posts is life. The fence posts are just posts.”

“Right,” I chuckled. He was always pulling my leg. I looked over at him and he seemed serious. “I don’t get it.”

“You will.”

We blew through Rose, not decelerating a bit. The post office flashed by, one car parked alongside the building. In two seconds the fence posts were back. What was he talking about? Life?

“The fence posts are just posts,” he said, responding to my unasked question. “They are the people you will meet in your lifetime. The space between the posts represents your interactions with them. That’s life. It is like a sideways movie.” We drove on in silence.

An orange red dot appeared in the distance. It had to be a pick up truck. That was all you encountered on the roads out here. The heat rising up from the asphalt made water appear on the surface. The pickup was traveling at high speed, as were we, yet it took an eternity for it to reach us. Growing ever larger as it drifted in and out of my imaginary reservoir on the road. It gained form and definition as it approached. Then swoosh, it went past. Dad waved. The guy in the cowboy hat waved back.

“Think about your fence posts,” he said. “Your interaction with them will be your life. Are you keeping up maintenance on your fence? Are the holes deep enough to last through several winters and summers? What kind of wood are your posts made of?”

We drove on. Twenty minutes to Bassett.

That was the end of the conversation. I understood without understanding. It haunted me at first, then as with all things, time ground the sharpness of the concept to a whisper.

Dad died last year.

In a flush of emotion the conversation slammed back into me. He was right and I was stupid not to have seen it all these years.

At the funeral hundreds of friends appeared, some traveling thousands of miles. All assortments of people, high school chums, college roommates, neighbors, business associates, even the guy who ran the gas station. They told me endless stories of his kindness and friendship. They shared tales of his youth that fathers usually don’t tell their sons. Though it was a day of good byes, we smiled, laughed and cried at the reception following. People I had never seen in my life squeezed me tightly. As if by hugging me, they were able to touch him one last time. They didn’t want to let go. That’s when I got it.

Life.

These were his fence posts. Alone they were just posts. They were just people on the street, faces in pictures, anonymous creatures with curious and irrelevant actions that interrupted my urgent daily tasks. They were just people, until you slowed down the sideways movie. Only then you could see the fence posts.

With my father, these fence posts became life. The stories, the tears, the laughs, the handshakes, the hugs, the kisses, those were life. It was never about the fence posts. It was always about what’s in between.

I was humbled by what he had built. Not a profitable business, though he did that. Not an enduring close-knit family, though he did that. Not a robust financial statement, though he did that.

Dad built a life that, on that day, and for the rest of my days, would cause me to examine my own.

He tended his fence well.